Liberal, Not Democrat

With the anti-Bush cult in full swing, I must ask: do people consider themselves Liberals or Democrats? Yes, I am sorry, but the difference exists; and the sooner we straighten this out, the better.

The overarching idea is simple: Liberals seek change while Conservatives resist it. Every society represents a mixture of Liberal and Conservative forces, with the population oscillating back and forth. Due to the great diversity of social, economical, and generational contexts (just to name a few), British Liberals might find American Conservatives highly agreeable , whereas 18th century Liberals are modern conservatives. While the frameworks of these two leading ideologies remain constant overtime, the corresponding political parties are constantly changing with the tide, so it would be unwise to over-commit to a single party instead of the basic political philosophy.

Liberals are cool. They really are. Without them, California’s air would not be as clean . Nor would Europe, seven years into the twenty first century, be untangled from religious warfare, since no Conservative in their right mind popularized the scientific mentality 12 generations ago. Why bother? Religious crusades were once the way to go. Even slavery, that infamous institution, is likely to exist today without the liberal abolitionists (who, ironically, were represented by the then-fledging Republican party during the mid-nineteenth century). Liberals are, and should continue to be, the innovative and adventurous souls that advance civilizations and increase qualities of life.

On the other hand, there are the Democrats. It would be ill advised to assume that Democrats and Liberals are equivalent, or that one must accept the former because one prefers the latter. Somewhere along the line, a leader or another got off on the wrong footing, and the course never resynchronized, leaving the Democrats with stingy traces of Liberalism. Instead of aiming for beneficial changes, as the Liberal spirit once was, Democrats now aim solely to defeat the Republicans and consequently fail to reform outdated or irrational party policies.

Allow me to cover the Al Gore fan club first. For the sake of argument, I will join the club for a moment. First, because we are wearing green t-shirts, and are aware of global warming, and are agreeing with people who appear to speak out against it, and are laughing at the Bush supporters for calling it climate change, we are the only ones qualified to drive SUVs because we make a difference unlike the ignorant Republicans. It goes without saying that it is time to control our economy and regulate our energy use so we can have another president-led Energy Crisis . Of course, Republicans are always the ones ruining the environmental credential of Americans, so without them, we, the benevolent souls, can eliminate global warming because Americans are good people and are always ready to give up our heavenly lives for the welfare of others, just as we have always done since we slaughtered the Indians.

It is putative knowledge that Democrats believe the First Amendment to be Sacred and the Second Amendment to be the work of Satan. If guns did not exist, the world would be perfect. We told the public all along that arms needed to be banned or, at a minimum, we needed more gun-free zones to avoid tragedies like Columbine. Nonetheless, even post-Virginia Tech, people still fail to take any action, despite the facts that the guns used at Columbine were illegal anyway and that Virginia Tech was a gun-free zone in the first place. If guns were never invented, envision all the bloody wars avoided and the precious lives saved. Guns, not human nature, are the roots of Evil and the cause of wars. Therefore, it should be our goal to lead the removal of guns from the face of our country and promote total pacifism among our brothers in the Middle East, who will be sure to follow suit, especially since the Arabs, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Europeans all invented firearms independently for peaceful purposes in the first place. As a start, we need to first ban legal guns so robbers (who are perfectly capable of getting guns illegally anyway) will be assured that the law protects them from legal firearms when they do their job. Guns will be slowly, but surely, eradicated since legislations are perfectly capable of controlling the supply and demand of firearms.

Finally, the terrorism campaign, that Republicans set up to ignite fear in the American people in order to gain fallacious votes, is “an injustice to the American people” . It is pure coincidence that America has not had any terrorist attacks on American soil since September 11, for the terrorists have either lost motivation, or simply gotten dumber . It is irrelevant that many prominent Democratic Senators once approved of Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 , because the monkey from Texas obviously tricked these intelligent, educated, and sophisticated leaders that we all admire so dearly. Naturally, the sooner we get out of Iraq, the better. American parents never scold their kids for failing to clean up after their own mess, so why should the international community be any different?

Now, I realize I am talking about fibers of the Democratic ideology that are not fully representative of the whole mop. No one is asked to suddenly become Conservatives and/or Republicans overnight; Reagan and Thatcher left the political scope long ago. On the contrary, here is the deal: Liberals are about changing for the better, not dwelling on politics, or condemning the culprits; so it is time to stop criticizing and start constructing a credential by revising and updating utopian and contradictory ideals. After all, these are the Democratic ideals that Conservative commentators have mocked and ridiculed for the last decade. Why give them the chance?

When Libertarians place Republicans for their ballots, they do it grudgingly, knowing there is a difference between their ideology and the representative they are voting for. It is true that the best way to promote Liberalism is to vote Democrat, but that by no means forces one to agree with everything the Democrats are saying.

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